History of Champions League T20
The Champions League T20 will start from 10 September this year and will have 10 cricket clubs play against each other. This is the second edition of the tournament. The first season had seen 12 teams feature in the tournament in India.
The first tournament was to begin in the 2008 season, with 12 teams from around the world to participate in the tournament. This included three from India, two from Australia and South Africa, and one each from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mumbai-c820 meant that the tournament, which was to only begin a week later, had to be abandoned.
The terror attacks also meant that the ties between the Indian and Pakistani governments had deteriorated to the level that no cricket was possible between the two countries. The Pakistanis were not chosen for the second edition of the IPL, and the Pakistani chairman, Ejaz Butt refused to send the Pakistani teams in a huff.
This meant that there was an extra slot freed up and England were allowed to send in two teams instead of the initially decided one. This was also, in part, because of the improving ties between the Indian and the English cricket boards, after the latter had sent the English cricket team to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 after the terror attacks to play in a couple of Test matches.
After the respective qualifying processes, the three teams from India were Delhi, Bangalore and Deccan, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 respectively.
The 12 teams were divided into four groups of three teams each. Each of the team was to play two games in a round-robin format, and the top two teams from each group would qualify for the Super Eights. The teams were to also carry the points forward that they had got against the other qualifier from their group to the next round.
New South Wales had gone on to win the tournament by beating Trinidad and Tobago in the final. Rather surprisingly, neither New South Wales, nor Trinidad and Tobago have qualified for the second edition of the Champions league T20 this year.
The winner of the tournament, the New South Wales Blues won a whopping $2.5 million, whereas Trinidad and Tobago got $1.3 million. This was, till then, the biggest prize pot in any cricket tournament ever played.
Group A saw the IPL champions Deccan Chargers crash out of the tournament, by losing both their games to Somerset and Trinidad and Tobago (TT). TT beat Somerset to qualify for the second round with full points, whereas the Chargers were unlucky to miss out after losing both their games off the last ball.
The New South Wales Blues and the Diamond Eagles were the qualifiers from the second group, while the team crashing out was the Michael Yardy-led Sussex. Such was the domination of New South Wales, that in both the games that they played and won, the opposition failed to even get to 100 in the 20 overs on a minefield of a track at the Feroz Shah Kotla. The third game of the group to decide which of the teams would join the New South Wales side in the second round was a classic. The Sussex side scored 119 in their 20 overs, and the Eagles needed five to win off the last ball. They hit a four to tie the game and take it to the Super Over. In the Super Over, the Eagles scored nine runs and then knocked the two http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sussex-c852 wickets off for no run and entered the second round.
In the Group C, Royal Challengers Bangalore were stunned in the first game of the tournament by Cobras despite scoring 180/4. Ross http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Otago-c829 Volts before bowling the opposition out for 139 to win the game a passage into the second round. The situation boiled down to the winner of the third game between Bangalore and Otago qualifying for the second round and the home team did it in style – beating Otago by 80 runs.
The fourth group saw http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Victoria-c859 qualify for the second round.
In the second round, TT continued their winning run and qualified for the semi-final along with New South Wales Blues, while the other group had Victoria and Cobras going through at the expense of Bangalore and Delhi.
In the semi-finals, the two Aussie teams met at Delhi, and the New South Wales were runaway winners – winning by 79 runs. In the other knock-out, Trinidad and Tobago chased down a target of 175 in the last over thanks to Dwayne Bravo’s 58.
The final failed to live up to all the hype as the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-South-Wales-c823 side scored 159 and then had Trinidad and Tobago on the mat by bowling them out for 118.
Still, the excitement of the inaugural successful tournament was such that this year the tournament looks set to the hold the attention of the cricket world.
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